Budgerigars, small and colorful parrots, are known for their ability to mimic human speech. Scientists have now discovered that these parrots may have the same brain mechanism for speech as humans.
A study published Wednesday in Nature reveals that budgerigars use brain structures similar to those humans rely on for speech.
Michael Long, a neuroscientist at New York University Langone Health, led the research alongside colleague Zetian Yang.
The team found that the brains of budgerigars contain nerve cell activity organized in a way that mirrors human speech production. Until now, no other animal has been known to have a comparable system.
Long and Yang studied the brain activity of four budgerigars while they chirped. Their observations focused on nerve cells in a brain region called the anterior arcopallium, which plays a key role in controlling vocal sounds.
The organization of these nerve cells is surprisingly simple, Long said. He likened it to a keyboard, where each key represents a different sound—such as consonants, vowels, high pitches, or low pitches. By “playing” this vocal keyboard, budgerigars can produce a wide range of sounds.
This “is really the first nonhuman animal in which that has been shown.” Long said. It suggests that the way humans and budgies create speech is not so different after all.
The study also compared the brains of budgerigars and zebra finches, a songbird species known for its complex vocalizations. While both birds can imitate sounds using specialized brain regions and vocal organs, only parrots have the ability to form human words.
Zebra finches require over 100,000 practice attempts to learn a single song, gradually shaping their brain activity through a slow process of trial and error. In contrast, budgerigars—similarly to humans—can adjust their vocal behavior quickly.
The similarities between human and budgerigar speech mechanisms may not be a coincidence. Scientists believe this could be an example of convergent evolution, where different species develop similar traits to solve the same problem.
Humans and budgerigars evolved separately, yet both have developed a flexible system for producing complex vocal sounds. According to Long, this suggests that the ability to form speech-like sounds may emerge in species that rely on social communication.
While scientists now understand how budgerigars produce sound, another question remains: What are they saying?
Long and his team are now working to translate budgie communication using advanced machine learning. By analyzing patterns in their chirps and warbles, researchers hope to determine if these birds use structured language similar to humans.
If successful, the findings could reshape how scientists view animal communication. “Maybe we can start to reexamine the notions of human exceptionalism,” Long said.
